Good morning! Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Isn't this a wild little quilt? I'm calling it Electric Joy, because it's just exploding out in color.
I never would have made something like this years ago. (Red binding on a purple border???) I'm more of a classic quilts, reproduction fabrics quilter. But I make bright baby quilts for donation, and I have lots of scraps. I can't let them go to waste, can I?
Below is a tutorial, if you'd like to know how to make this quilt.
I use a lot of 2.5 in. strips in the kid quilts, and I seem to always have these little ends of strips. If there is at least 2.5 in. left on a strip, I cut a square and put it in a box. These are all pieces that are less than 2 in. wide, but about 2.5 in. long.
To make the main squares in this block, I sewed them into strips about 7 in. long. I kept this handy ruler at the machine, and did multiple strips at a time.
Next step was pressing the strips, and trimming them to 2 in. wide by 6.5 in. long.
Like this! It was sad to see some of my favorite fabrics trimmed almost to nothing at the ends. I finally learned to put the best ones in the middle.
Next I added a bright triangle to each side of the strip. I cut the triangles with the Easy Angle from 4.5 in. strips. You could use charm squares, and just cut them in half.
I know this looks wrong, but don't worry. This gets trimmed up to be a 4.5 in. square.
I trimmed first one side and then the other. Each time, I placed the corner of the ruler as close to the center of the pieced strip as possible.
Second side being trimmed.
Voila. Each block needs 4 of these squares. You also need 4 shorter strips that go between the blocks. These should measure 2 in. x 4.5 in. after trimming. The center is a bright 2 in. square.
The blocks measure 10.5 in. finished.
Here's the back so you can see how I pressed it.
For the set, I used a solid yellow interspersed with 2 in. squares. The yellow pieces were cut 2 in. x 4.5 in. The squares were random bright colors. In this photo I'm still missing a few yellow strips.
Here's a closeup of the finished quilt. I quilted in the ditch, and quilted diagonal lines in all the squares.
Here's the back, a print of big strawberries. Mmm, I can't wait for strawberry season!
I have to admit, the quilting on this is Not Great. In fact, this quilt has more nips and tucks than an aging movie star. I think the piecing was okay, especially since it was trimmed carefully. It could have been my not-so-stellar basting. Or the wiggly purple border fabric. Or gremlins.
Either way, it's finished, and I like it. This one isn't for donation, it's for us.
Somehow, there are still lots of scraps left in that basket.
Have a wonderful quilty week!
I'm linking up with Myra at
Busy Hands Quilts and Amanda Jean at
Crazy Mom Quilts this week.
